Instant messaging (IM) services provide a well known mechanism for allowing computer users to communicate in real-time. Such services are typically provided over the Internet by an independent service provider, such as AOL, MSN, Yahoo, and other similar service providers. Because of its convenience and ease of use, IM has become one of the most popular methods to communicate with family and friends over the Internet. Indeed, at the release of its latest IM package, one of the leading service providers indicated that it now had more than 155 million registered users who collectively exchanged more than 2.5 billion instant messages every day.
For the same reasons that IM is so popular with consumers, the use of IM as a means of business communication has also grown rapidly. Analysts have predicted that within a few years, hundreds of millions of corporate IM users will exist globally. Yet, IM's explosive growth has created a number of problems for businesses, namely issues of security and exposure to viruses.
This need for security has spawned a number of IM client-server solutions designed for corporate use. With these solutions, IM communications are controlled and monitored within an enterprise, and insulated from a public network by at least one firewall. Typically, existing solutions implement a single client-server model where a plurality of internal clients are coupled to an internal IM server that resides behind at least one firewall. For security reasons, access to the internal IM server from the Internet is prohibited.
In this manner, it is possible for IT personnel to keep IM communications safely encrypted behind a corporate firewall, rather than traveling unencrypted over the Internet, where hackers or other malicious eavesdroppers can listen in on conversations with relative ease. The corporation can create and control user accounts, log conversations, and ensure that the communications are encrypted. Moreover, the corporation can control the communication flow, such that IM communications are not passed from client to client, but rather from client to IM server to client.
Although existing corporate solutions offer the advantages of IM within an enterprise, i.e., behind the firewall, they do not facilitate such communications between IM servers in different companies that may or may not be protected by firewalls. Accordingly, business-to-business IM communications still require an independent service provider on the Internet to facilitate IM communications through firewalls. This, however, presents security issues and exposure to viruses.
In addition, because existing solutions rely on the single client-server model, where the server is isolated from other servers for security reasons, the existing solutions are not scalable. Accordingly, existing solutions may not be suitable for a large enterprise that can have hundreds of thousands of employees residing in different offices in different countries and continents.
Accordingly, there is a need for a distributed instant communication system that not only allows users within an enterprise to engage in secure IM communications, but also allows secure IM communications between users in different enterprises without requiring an independent IM service provider. The system should be scalable and should regulate traffic according to corporate security policies.